If you love drinking

If you love drinking tea as much as I do, and want to learn more about local tea culture, April is a great month to visit Hangzhou. We paid a visit to the Longjing Tea Fields, which makes for a great day tour out of the city center of Hangzhou. The village itself was only a 5-10 minute walk from the Imperial Library, where local vendors could be seen sitting outdoors with their metal pans drying freshly picked green tea. The smell emitting these pans and local shops was unbelievable – a delicate and sweet fragrance that reminded us of everything matcha we had ever eaten. The ridge of the hills themselves are said to represent that of the dragon which the area takes its name from, extending from head to tail and curling around the plantation we were in! N.B. If travelling to Hangzhou during a weekend, be sure to allow some extra travel time to get to Longjing Village! On a good day, this trip is usually around 30-40 minutes by taxi, or an hour by bus. Arriving on a Sunday though, around 11am, we ended up being stuck in traffic for over 1.5 hours while trying to get to Longjing Village in a taxi (due to the area around the West Lake being highly congested). #urbanexplorer#qingmingtravel